Art Exhibit To Immerse Viewers In Subject

Barbara Hocker will be installing her exhibit at the Vernon Community Arts Center during the week leading up to the opening, and guests are invited to help.

Barbara Hocker will be installing her exhibit at the Vernon Community Arts Center during the week leading up to the opening, and guests are invited to help. (HANDOUT)

Steve Smith - Staff Writer

It’s safe to say that artist Barbara Hocker likes water. Her upcoming installation at the Vernon Community Arts Center will feature water as its central theme, and will immerse visitors in the experience.

The exhibition is titled “River/Sea,” and will include two room-sized installations, as well as a group of 12 smaller works of handmade artist books. She said that she hopes visitors will “enter” the smaller pieces in their imaginations, but they will be able to enter the larger ones physically.

One of the installations will be made by Hocker on site during the week leading up to the exhibit’s opening on June 22, from 1 to 5 p.m. Visitors may stop by the center (from 1 to 5 p.m.) to observe, and even help Hocker with the piece.

The largest installation, Hocker describes as a “labyrinth” that includes 7-foot-high hanging sheets of rice paper and three layers that people walk through to get to the center of the installation. On the sheets will be still and moving digital images of water, with the projections providing most of the light in the room.

Hocker said all of the subject matter in the exhibit’s images are of water, and she hopes that people will feel “immersed” in oceans, swimming and even floods.

“There are actually going to be underwater images in the video,” she said. “You are meant to have this ‘in the water’ experience. I hope that my work sparks something in people that makes them look more closely at the everyday nature around them, and appreciate it more. I think that’s why I do what I do.”

Hocker has created similar works in the past, but this will be the largest one to date. She said a grant from the Roberts Foundation made the large installation possible.

Hocker grew up in Norwalk, and has been a resident of Coventry for years. She said she collected all of the images used in her work from water sources in Connecticut, including Coventry Lake, Eagleville Reservoir, and ocean images from the Groton area of Long Island Sound.

Hocker has exhibited extensively in New England, including in Boston, and Newport, R.I., and has a studio at Real Art Ways in Hartford.She has a bachelor’s degree in fibers and printmaking from Syracuse University and Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.